The Intelligence and Aging of People Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Intelligence and Aging of People - Essay Example Depending on the definition of the term intelligence, it can either be decreasing with age (when defined as unitary property), or it can be increasing with age (when defined as an entity consisting of multiple factors) (Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner, 2007). There are many studies that prove that fact that ageing does not necessarily mean a reduction of intelligence. In one of the researches, the authors present their findings based on various tests which help to analyze long and short-term memory tasks of older adults ageing (ages 60 through 80) and younger adults (ages 18 through 30) (Bartlett, 2002). The aim of the research was to analyze how ageing and experience might affect different aspects of cognition. This research was conducted on the basis of a variety of tasks. It was found that there was little to no age effect. Moreover, it was concluded that both adult and young participants of the study equally benefited from the â€Å"usefulness of domain-specific musical knowledge† (Barlett, 2002, p. 18). Interesting, ageing was in many tasks considered more beneficial than experience. Finally, the researchers found that there were no relationships between ageing and music cognition skills; besides, they never found that age differences were reduced in persons who had had more years of musical practice. The research based on musical expe rience may be transferred to other domains of cognition. Thus, it could be concluded that ageing should not be viewed as some negative process of adulthood, but rather as the ability to get to a bank of cognition resources.